Steel pipes for the recovery of petroleum and natural gas are screwed together to form strings of pipe, the connections being subject to high mechanical stresses. Furthermore, they must also still be capable of being screwed and frequently screwed under stress. Additionally, depending on the type of thread--the connections must be gas-tight for certain applications, such as tubing (e.g., risers) for natural gas. Steel-pipe materials tend in this connection to undergo cold welding, so-called galling on the surfaces which slide on each other. It has therefore already frequently been proposed to coat the surfaces in the thread and on the metallic sealing seat which slide on each other with a nonferrous metal such as copper or tin (Federal Republic of Germany OX 31 47 967). The selection of the most suitable nonferrous metals and of their ability to adhere to the pipe material is important in this connection, as well as their ductility. For this it has also been proposed to apply a layer of lead, zinc, cadmium or bismuth to the sealing and/or threaded regions, this layer consisting of about 1 to 10% tin and being about 3 to 20.mu.m thick (EP OS 246 387). This proposal has the disadvantage of insufficient adherence of the layer applied, so that it cannot take up thrust forces which occur during the screwing process.